On May 1st, David Skillen spoke to us about ‘Zeppelins in WW1’. This excellent talk described how these rigid airships were pioneered by Count von Zeppelin after he saw in the 1870s how hydrogen-filled balloons were used for reconnaissance in the US Civil War. Much later he experimented with Zeppelins – rigid airships – firstly for tourist flights within Germany and when WW1 started he developed them to locate enemy forces and to drop bombs on enemies.

Navigation of Zeppelins proved difficult, and their maximum speed was less than 50 mph. However Germany continued to construct very large airships able to fly for 36 hours non- stop. Britain concentrated on defending cities with the use of observers and mobile guns while Sopwith aircraft firing incendiary bullets brought many Zeppelins down. Germany started to rely on new aircraft for strategic bombing.

After WW1, airships such as ‘Graf Zeppelin’ were used for luxury transatlantic travel. This effectively ended in 1936 when ‘Hindenburg’ crashed in the USA, killing many passengers. David was pessimistic about the success of current modern airship developments.